Migration Central

Making the Move

At a high level, the process of migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is virtually the same whether an organization is moving a single application or a complex collection of integrated environments. Every cloud migration requires key steps like assessment, planning, target environment provisioning, and cutover. But the details of each step may vary significantly depending on what type of environment is being migrated.

Let's take a close look at the phases of the cloud migration process and the various options for carrying out each step.

3. Transporting VMs, Data, and Files to Oracle

After source instances have been properly captured and prepped, the next step is to transport them to the target environment in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The total dataset to be transported should include data housed in the VMs' storage, backups, and databases. The transport may be carried out online or offline, depending on the amount of data being moved, available bandwidth, downtime tolerance, and costs. The table below provides information about how long it takes to migrate datasets online and offline. The table accounts for dataset sizes and available bandwidth.

Dataset Size

10 Mbps

100 Mbps

1 Gbps
(FastConnect)

10 Gbps
(FastConnect)

Data Transfer Service

10 TB

92 Days

9 Days

22 Hours

2 Hours

1 Week

100 TB

1,018 Days

101 Days

10 Days

24 Hours

1 Week

500 TB

5,092 Days

509 Days

50 Days

5 Days

1 Week

1 PB

10,185 Days

1,018 Days

101 Days

10 Days

2 Weeks

Online Transport

It's important to consider bandwidth and security when transporting data, VMs, and files over the wire. Organizations can migrate datasets over the public internet, or set up private connectivity between on-premises data centers and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Data should always be encrypted at rest and in transit.

VPN over Internet
Relatively small datasets—up to approximately 2 terabytes (TBs)—can typically be transported over the public internet without problems. Use a virtual private network (VPN) between the source environment and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to ensure secure connectivity. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) VPN is the best option in this case.

The first step to setting up an IPsec VPN between the source environment and Oracle is establishing a dynamic routing gateway (DRG). The DRG should be set up to connect Oracle's cloud with any on-premises routers. Use multiple IPsec tunnels to ensure redundancy. See Oracle's IPSec VPN documentation for detailed instructions.

FastConnect
Oracle FastConnect is another option for securely connecting on-premises data centers and networks to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. It's the right choice for organizations that need to transport large datasets. Port speeds are available in 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps increments when working with a third-party connectivity provider, and 10 Gbps increments when co-locating with Oracle.

FastConnect enables organizations to quickly scale up, scale down, and terminate connections as needed. For example, an organization may choose to set up a 1 Gbps connection to transport a single application with a small dataset during the testing phase, then quickly scale up to a 10 Gbps connection when deploying multiple applications with large datasets. Finally, the organization can quickly terminate the connection once the transfer is complete.

Several Oracle partners offer solutions for setting up high-speed connections from on-premises data centers or other public clouds to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Visit Oracle's FastConnect page for a listing of providers and solutions.

Storage Gateway
Once a secure connection has been established, organizations can use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Storage Gateway to securely create copies of on-premises files and place them into Oracle object storage without the need to modify applications. Read Oracle's Storage Gateway FAQ for more detailed information.

Offline Transport

For organizations with large, petabyte-scale datasets who are concerned about long upload times, Oracle recommends the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Data Transfer Service. This service uses commodity hard disks or the Oracle Data Transfer Appliance to quickly and securely transport data to Oracle without going over the wire.

Data Transfer Appliance
Each Data Transfer Appliance enables organizations to migrate up to 150 TBs of data. Appliances can be requested via the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure management console after creating a transfer job. The appliance should be configured and connected to the on-premises network. Migration teams also need to mount NFS volumes off the appliance and copy the data onto the appliance. After the data is copied, ship the appliance back to Oracle and monitor the status of the data transfer. The Data Transfer Service launch blog provides details on how to use the service.

Data Transfer Disk
Oracle's Data Transfer Disk is another offline data transfer solution. Organizations send data as files on encrypted disks to an Oracle transfer site. Then site operators upload the files into the organization's designated object storage bucket. Users are free to move the uploaded data into other Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services as needed. For details on the supported disk types, see Oracle's Data Transfer Disk documentation.

After all the VMs, data, and files have been securely transported to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, it's time to provision and deploy the target environment.